The crisis of the formula of liberal democracy
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Date
2012
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Kujawsko-Pokorska Szkoła Wyższa w Bydgoszczy
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Abstract
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The main issues contained in the text relate to: (1) adoption of the logic of economic rationality as the paradigm of conduct by the state and society, (2) redefining the concept of politics, which involves, among others, adopting by the governing the role of managers in selected areas of the state and with the use of their logic of 'mixed rationality' ('logic of power' and 'logic of economic rationality '), (3) challenges associated with distribution of wealth.
Capitalist economy affects all spheres of social life, which necessitates the presentation of its 'modus operandi'. The characteristic features of this interaction are: (1) formal rationality, (2) dogma of efficiency and quantitative measurability, (3) reproduction of the ideology of individual's free will, regardless of social context, (4) enforcement of appropriate reproduction of labour, (5) colonization of subsequent areas of social activity (such as education and higher education), (6) impact on exclusion of social groups due to the level of financial security. All these can be reduced to the concept of the logic of economic rationality.
The governing use the 'mixed strategy', which is based on two logics of conduct - (1) the logic of power, (2) the logic of economic rationality. The logic of power is nothing but a desire to gain and maintain power, where power itself is the goal, and the structures of the state form an area which should be taken over or controlled. The governing, to hide their lack of ideals and conflicts in the struggle for taking over the state structures, cultivate the 'outside' policy, which takes the form of a 'festival' of discourse of agony. Such a policy is possible due to the distribution process during the redistribution of wealth (contrary to economic rationality) and/or owing to the instrumental treatment of the distribution of recognition. Due to the inability to maintain a high level of distribution, especially in the economic crisis, the governing willingly use the logic of economic rationality. Solutions based on economic rationality, despite their negative acceptance by the public, are introduced by using the argument of security threats (economic, social, national, etc.). Thus, the state withdraws from governing, changing it to managing certain areas of the state. This cannot be called otherwise as an 'escape' from liability, which is especially visible in situations of economic instability. In such situations we deal with the state 'responsibilities outsourcing', which may have various forms – (1) transferring functions to other institutions while maintaining the competence of controlling or (2) transferring responsibilities to its own institutions, which previously played a different role. All these can be called a reconfiguration of state functions connected with domination of the capitalist economy and the impact of the logic of economic rationality.
The text also describes the problem of distribution of wealth and recognition, but only in terms of its instrumentalization by the government. We can say that liberal concepts of individual's liberty and priority of ownership lead to ideologically simple justification for the application of mixed strategies and rationality. The text presents a thesis on the instrumentalization of distribution of wealth, i.e., the instrumental use of appreciation of various minorities in the political system. It should also be noted that the dominance of free market logic leads to depreciation of redistribution of wealth in relation to glorification of the issue of recognition.
The text merely sketches the problem of inadequacy of the formula of liberal democracy, as presented in selected issues. The discussed issue of liberal democracy does not focus on the attempt to reconstruct a model of democracy of this kind; it was rather more important to present the phenomenon of adopting in practice of what might be called the logic of economic rationality. It is worth to analyse further the very logic of 'mixed rationality', which was simplified to coexistence of 'logic of power' and 'the logic of economic rationality'.
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Keywords
democracy, democratic theory, crisis of democracy, contemporary Liberalism, liberal democracy
Citation
R. Rosicki, The crisis of the formula of liberal democracy, in: Ł. Jureńczyk, N. Shukuralieva, W. Trempała (eds.), Kryzys w stosunkach międzynarodowych. Typy, wymiary, skutki, sposoby przeciwdziałania, KPSW, Bydgoszcz 2012, pp. 19 - 37.
ISBN
978-83-89914-56-9